Alan found his calling!

We have finally decided to tackle the bathroom. Started off as maybe adding a new vanity/sink and new flooring. Well we've decided to go nearly the whole way now and are demolishing it back to the studs. We will keep the bathtub and try to get it re-finished in the near future. The toilet may also have to wait depending on how our budget holds. Main reason we are going the whole way with it is the shower plumbing is worn out and that wall has to be ripped out to access the pipes. I figure it's going to take a couple of months to get it complete as we are hoping to do about 90% of the work ourselves. We bought the new vanity and medicine cabinet at Lowes on Friday - they had a great deal on it. Alan attacked the walls on Saturday and has nearly half of them ripped back to the studs. To do the remainder we will have to remove the vanity and toilet, and do the walls around the tub. The outside wall will be messiest as there is blown in insulation behind it that I'm sure will come tumbling out.

So the pictures are of Alan with his trusty sledgehammer standing very proud in the midst of the destruction! Also a few few pics of the Christmas decorations on the house.

Some things do come to those who wait.

It has been a quiet week, fairly routine. we've been patiently (?) waiting to receive the first draft of the home study. We had thought that we would have it earlier in the week, but the last we had heard was that they were waiting on a last piece of information. Well Texas DPS was slow in returning the criminal background check, it was received on Wed. and we received the draft on Friday. I only have a few minor changes requested and some spelling errors ( Hennessey- in about the middle of the report they added a E to our spelling for a few paragraphs). I will have to wait to make the changes and send it back to them Monday as I don't have MS Word on my home computer. We were also glad to hear that they went ahead and sent the draft to AAI for preliminary approval so things can move along a bit faster. We are approved a 2 children under the age of 14, with a preference for siblings, at least one of them a boy. It was a good report with all the references recommending us - thank you all!
I am going ahead and contacting AAI to see if I can go ahead and get the Waiting Child(ren) DVD since they have at least received the draft. We would really like to have it before the Thanksgiving holiday so that we can share it with some of the family as we make the decision on which children we would like to share our home and family.
So a bit of excitement is starting to build again after the weeks of waiting. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that our dossier will be in Ethiopia before Christmas. Say a prayer for us that it will be!

I'm Still Smiling! (political)

While the majority of the candidates I voted for lost on Tuesday the one that really matters the most to us won! I really didn't expect any of the democratic candidates in local and state races to win since Texas is so overwhelmingly a red state. The past few weeks have been full of ups and downs and are we ever glad to see the end of this political season.

We have had neighbours disagree with our views so strongly that they flew the confederate flag. If you look in the picture above you can just see it above the front of their car. JUst so you also know we did not have 3 signs in our yard (and balloons) until after the election. We had one Obama sign and a "Had Enough Vote Democratic" sign up until they were stolen a week before. Now tell me what you think - if I place an Obama sign in my yard and they follow not with a McCain sign but with a Confederate flag - wouldn't you think this a very racist statement? I won't touch on free speech issues here, I just find their action highly offensive.

Needless to say we are no longer on speaking terms with these neighbors.

So we are glad it is over and we are back to focusing on the adoption. We are still waiting on the draft of our home study so that it can be finalized and submitted. All our Dossier paperwork has gone to the agency, except they still haven't received Alan's work reference and of course the final home study. Taking a bit longer than I had hoped - but then it usually does.

So I guess we wait.